


six roman virtues

by notadoombot (CaptainClintSpiderBalder)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: It's About The Repression, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 02:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20613152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainClintSpiderBalder/pseuds/notadoombot
Summary: It starts, as everything usually does, with one banal act of weakness.





	six roman virtues

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [seis virtudes romanas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19733353) by [CaptainClintSpiderBalder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainClintSpiderBalder/pseuds/CaptainClintSpiderBalder). 

> I was bored and translated this, it has been an interesting experiment and it has also given me the impression that I do not, in fact, know any English.

**dignitas**

It starts, as everything usually does, with one banal act of weakness. They find each other after a long decade and Crowley spends one week nursing that thought, letting it meander in his mind for days, until he has no other option but to give in and yield to habit. Sleeves rolled up to his forearms, top three buttons of his shirt undone: Crowley slides down the sofa as if this were his own home and not Aziraphale’s small and uncomfortable flat, a recent acquisition in Islington to which the angel had been more than reticent to invite him. Both of them are floating on that liminal space just before inebriation and suddenly Crowley feels too hot, too human, perhaps, when he leans in until his nose almost brushes against Aziraphale’s collar. “You smell nice,” he grimaces at that. Aziraphale tenses, straightens up in a way that Crowley could only describe as excessive. He wrinkles his nose, his jaw tightens, and both their glasses of brandy stay half-finished on the table.

Aziraphale seems unsure when he turns to look at him, Crowley wills himself not to meet his glance. “Thanks?”

Then he shuts his eyes, shakes his head vigorously and somewhat intoxicated. “No, it’sss…” the hissing slips out easily, he wets his lips with a quick twist of his tongue. “You smell _Nice_ is what I meant,” spitting it out like some venom that’s been building up for days. He only opens his eyes when he moves away. Aziraphale keeps staring at the empty space he just left beside him.

“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” he looks feverish, all flushed cheeks as he leans back on the sofa and rests one arm on the back. His fingertips brush against Crowley’s hair, messily put together in a low ponytail. And the thing is, Crowley is fairly certain Aziraphale does not even notice this, does not realize the way his fingers gravitate naturally, innocently, and doesn’t waste one lonely second thinking about it.

“Typical.”

Crowley takes off his glasses and abandons them in the tiny space they’ve left between them, one weak but unsurpassable barrier.

They found each other nearly two weeks ago, near the Royal Theater. Aziraphale had been wearing a long, cream-coloured coat, unsuited for an evening event. It was the sixth day that London spent on the verge of rain, air crackling with the electricity that precedes a storm about to break. The moment he saw him, Aziraphale’s expression had twisted into something obscene, charged with affection. A well-aimed and effective blow.

So he allows himself one slow, deep breath, arms himself with patience.

“Have you been to the office lately?” he ignores the way his head leans towards Aziraphale again, treacherous and very much in spite of himself.  
“Oh, Heavens,” Aziraphale says and when he smiles his whole face lights up, “yes, to be perfectly honest. I would never have thought of that.”

They all have their skills, and while Crowley has never been a tracker, that smell is engraved in his guts, it makes all the hair in his arms stand up and his stomach turn viciously. It lures him in like a moth. “No, I guess you wouldn’t.”

He bends to pick up his brandy, overly aware of the way that Aziraphale is eyeing his every move without his smile so much as faltering. _Stop that_, he wants to say, and hides behind his drink. It’s a sweet taste, almost sickeningly so, and he holds on to the glass so tightly he has to will the pieces to stay together. He drinks too much, too fast.

“Is it that bad?” to which Crowley just offers a low grunt that could mean anything. “I mean— You just never mentioned it, that’s all.”

Crowley takes one long, exaggerated gulp, shakes his shoulders, and all the corners of Aziraphale’s sofa dig into his back when he slides down again, legs as apart as his pants will allow and then some. He rests his empty glass on his lap and arches his neck to look at the angel.

If he could put it in words, this is what Crowley would say:

Before the end of the Seventh Day, the sky broke down for the first time in Existence. The flood had woken the Garden from its slumber: it made the plants shiver, diluted the earth, made animals discover what _shelter_ meant. Everything that had been light, was suddenly dirt and terrible and electric, and the firmament fell on them as it would later do for the sons of Adam. From his place in the East, Crowley had felt that burning sensation pulling at his seams, from every corner of his very being, and Aziraphale had covered him with a wing while the air boiled and teared up before them.

“What do you want me to say, it stinks like fucking Paschal candles, you should take a shower.”

Aziraphale’s cheek trembles ever so slightly and if Crowley blinked more often he would have missed it. So he takes that tick, saves it in his memory, in that box he keeps for every gesture he gives more attention than his dignity should allow. Then Aziraphale falls towards him, and Crowley lets himself enjoy a few seconds of absolute panic while he buries his nose in Crowley’s hair. He parts his lips, but doesn’t say anything until Aziraphale has not spent a few endless moments studying him, cataloguing him in his mind as he would do trying to dissect one especially sweet dessert.

“Satisfied?” Crowley is surprised the sound even leaves his throat.

Aziraphale lets out one vague, noncommittal noise. “Hmmm,” it seems he says. _Hmmm, what do you think about this play_ or _Hmmm, I’m not entirely sure about dadaism_. “Hmmm, really, I see no difference.”

Crowley’s neck is so tense it could snap in two any moment now.

“Maybe you’re just out of practice.”

Aziraphale inhales again, and Crowley shuts his eyes, waiting for the Earth to swallow him whole and Hellish fire to welcome him with open arms. He imagines his glass full of brandy and that’s what he finds when Aziraphale clicks his tongue, disappointed, and he feels brave enough to open his eyes again.

“Perhaps,” he tells him, fairly sad with his findings, something that suddenly feels unacceptable. He shakes his head, “oh, well”, and picks up his own glass, now brimming with brandy. When he sees it, his cheek quivers again and his gaze falls slightly, “oh, thank you”, he toasts in the air.

When Crowley makes excuses to go back to his own flat, he blows out every lamp he finds on his way, curses in between his teeth, breaks three keys inside their keyholes and then, with something dry and bitter in his stomach, guides a stray cat back home.

**industria**

As a rule, Crowley does not need more than a few minutes in a new city to find the most unpleasant fleapit the place has to offer. If there is somewhere you could catch an STD just by breathing in its proximity, you can be sure that Crowley will be inevitably attracted to it before you snap your fingers. If this is something he does not particularly enjoy, it is one particular skill that has earned him more than one commendation in his performance review. He takes pride in it. He’s been on this planet long enough to know its dirtiest secrets, find its filthiest corners, point at someone in the crowd and decide, disdainfully, _you, I will be seeing you Down There_. He makes quick judgements, mercilessly and aptly.

“Be ready at six, there’s this vietnamese restaurant I have to take you to,” he doesn’t let Aziraphale say hello when he picks up the phone. He traps his mobile against his shoulder while he makes a hard turn and someone shouts.  
“May I know where we’re going?”  
“Six,” he says again and, by divine intervention, the call cuts off.

Two months since the Apocalypse are two months with no reports, no passive-aggressive (Upstairs) or simply aggressive (Downstairs) memos, no control of what they are doing or not doing or even his expense account. It’s the main reason they end up in Budapest that afternoon, and not in their regular place in Soho, and Aziraphale barely opposes. No _if you had told me I wouldn’t have let you_, no _oh, Heavens, you shouldn’t have bothered_. No, Aziraphale grabs his arm —one of those familiar things they are not talking about— and lets himself be guided through the narrow streets of the city, already pitch dark by this time in winter.

The thing is— The thing is: finding the worsts places in any city, that’s vocation. Finding the best ones? Now, that takes effort, and dedication.

Crowley likes open and bright spaces, studios devoid of any furniture, patios that could fit a small garden up to the roof. He could, as he does with many other things, extend his hand and take what he needs from one of the adjacent dimensions to the mortal plane. Those spaces that keep his imagination, where miracles are born, it would be as simple as snapping his fingers and tug at the corners of reality and _voilà_. It’s something he does often enough for sloth to be his most prized sin.

But.

Aziraphale appreciates craft work.

**gravitas**

During one of their weekly reports and strolling down St. James, Aziraphale lets him know in passing that he’s sold one of his first editions of Auden. Three weeks later, he refuses an invitation to a new impressionist exhibition that just opened in Prague, with one feeble _maybe some other time_. When they dine, he waves his hand in the air, because what if he has not sent in his taxes yet, the deadline is not for another two weeks. However, it’s not until he accepts an invitation to Crowley’s studio without a complaint that the pieces start to fall in place.

And Crowley thinks this could have been in the forties, when they both tried to get as far away from Europe as possible just to avoid thinking about the savagery humans came up with for each other. It could have been during Babel’s downfall, when Crowley was unable to get one word out of him. It could have been in Jerusalem, waiting for Azrael side by side by the battered tomb they had laid Christ’s body in.

Instead, it’s a regular Tuesday. Unusual, really. The sky is clear, there is a pleasant breeze, Crowley had an exceptionally good espresso that morning.

Aziraphale steps into his studio and silently stares at the sketch of the Gioconda on his wall, and that’s when Crowley recognizes the look on his face, the tension in the apathetic smile when he opened the Bentley’s door for him, the eternal question on the tip of his tongue that will not— _cannot_ come out. He recognises it, because if there is something that Crowley knows from the inside out is doubt.

The mere idea makes his stomach twist into knots.

“Hey,” he grabs him carelessly by the elbow and pushes him towards the main room, “what are you drinking?”

He thinks back carefully on Aziraphale’s expression. Is this how it happened with Crowley? Little by little? Just one small shadow of doubt that slowly drips into every single one of his cells, until he couldn’t help it, couldn’t help but being completely soaked in it. Until it became the easy choice. One question, free fall, Hellish fire and see you at the end of times.

The bottle of whiskey slides from his fingers as he is trying to open it. “Fuck,” suddenly his kitchen is covered in bits of shattered glass and the salary of ten years. Aziraphale runs to the door before he has time to even do a quick incantation.

“Are you alright?” and isn’t that great, that he is worried.  
“No,” he groans, looks around for a cloth, something to help him wipe the rests of whiskey with, “I’ve had this bottle since 1925.”  
“If you would just let me” Azirapahale starts, he raises one hand and a few pieces of glass start to shake.  
“If I wanted your help I would have asked for it, angel.” He steps between Aziraphale and the mess that has become of his kitchen’s floor, interrupting the miracle.

Aziraphale looks at him from the door, he stands straight and regal, arms crossed over his chest and appearing taller than he must be. Crowley gets down, almost kneeling on the floor, cloth in one hand and scrubbing at the tiles furiously. The fabric drenches instantly, whiskey seeping underneath the sink, the fridge. So he throws the cloth on the floor and just stays down, elbows on his knees, crouching and very quiet.

“Are you done?”

Aziraphale asks this the same way he would address a small, particularly annoying child: not afable and understanding in any way, but impatient and dry. This is how he handles Crowley’s tantrums, with astonishing skill to either ignore them completely or providing a clean break.

Crowley sits down and gazes up at Aziraphale. He’s, of course, ruined a pair of perfectly good pants, so in five minutes another one will appear on top of his bed: brand new, neatly ironed. His boots splash around in the havoc he’s made of his kitchen.

Aziraphale doesn’t wait for an answer, just snaps his fingers and renders the room spotless. He can’t help but feel a certain pinch of pride in spite of himself, hoping it reflects on Gabriel’s reports. _Low level miracle, cleaning and replacement. Objective: Talisker Reserve, beginning of the century._ The whiskey’s lost of course, but it’s the principle of the matter.

For a second there he thinks he’s about to reach out a hand to him, but instead he crouches down beside Crowley and arches his eyebrows, making it hard to breath for the few oppressive seconds of silence that follow.

“Such a waste,” he says, before Aziraphale gets the chance to be the one who breaks it.  
“We could just go out.”  
“Yeah, well, bottle’s ruined either way.”

For a moment he is expecting Aziraphale to say _well, it’s not so bad, not in the grand scheme of things_, but this is the same being that would not speak to him for fifteen years after he used one of his (multiple!) copies of _De Profundis_ as a coaster. Crowley feels his throat raw. _It can’t be undone,_ he wants to say. _See? It can’t be undone._

Aziraphale nods slowly, tight-lipped and not breaking Crowley’s stare.

With one focused and contained movement, he lifts his hands towards Crowley’s face. He’s not sure how to react until he feels Aziraphale’s fingers taking off his glasses swiftly. He blinks twice, three times, quickly regretting it when the studio’s light fully hits him. Aziraphale does not waste time looking at him, and that’s fortunate, because Crowley wouldn’t know what to do if that were the case. It’s enough to have this, this constant whispering on the back of his mind that invites him to give in to the lack of personal space, knock down that wall he put up six thousand years ago and look like an idiot. Just bathe on this absurd panic at the tiny, minuscule possibility of being left alone at some point in Eternity.

The tinted glass is stained with a couple of stray drops that Aziraphale wipes away with a handkerchief he takes from his jacket’s pocket. When he gives them back, his expression has softened and Crowley grabs them too eagerly, does not put them on until Aziraphale has gotten up and left the kitchen.

**severitas**

The first time they sleep together (in the less literal and more biblical sense of the word), Crowley is working his way up to a big favour.

It wouldn’t be the first time Aziraphale asks him about work. In fact, the first formal discussion came around 1500, when Crowley had just gotten back from Spain. He was still a little bit drunk, although that fact made little difference. Aziraphale had asked, specifically, about Wrath. Not Greed, not Pride, not Sloth, somehow his mind had drifted straight to Wrath. “It’s not usually my thing, why do you want to know?”

“Well, if we’re going to do small” he lowers his voice, as if those pompous, lazy assholes in Central Office were going to listen in on their conversations, “if we are going to go ahead with the Agreement, I need to know what kind of things you do.”  
“Ugh, too much planning, angel.”

That’s not entirely correct, actually. Planning is the most interesting part of the temptation business.

“Indulge me,” he had said, big doe eyes focused on Crowley and only on Crowley, as if he were being meticulously studied. Crowley had smoothed out his shirt and shaken his head.  
“What do you want to know.”

And just like that they had gone over each of them. _The thing you need to consider, angel, is that it’s not about the—- It’s not about the act itself, it’s about the ramifications_. “Ah, so it’s not about saving a missionary’s life, it’s about all the lives they’re going to save in the time they have left.”

“Huh, no, no, no, let’s not talk about saving lives, okay? Makes me feel nauseous,” they came back to this conversation from time to time. “It’s about. It’s about finding that _thing_ that makes people tick, right? The potential is already within them, you just need to know who is capable of being terrible and make— Well, everybody else terrible.”  
“Well, dear boy, I believe that’s more your area of expertise.”  
“You asked me.”  
“In general terms, yes.”

Crowley lifts one boot up to the chair he is perched in, huddled, contorted, making himself look small while he waves around in the empty dining room. The owners closed the restaurant just for them, even if they’ll never know why. They have already left but Crowley and Aziraphale go on, debating.

“Look at you, for example.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widen.

“I beg your pardon?”  
“No, no, no, none of the innocent lamb act, you know what I’m talking about,” Crowley’s nodding energetically as he speaks, he smashes that inner voice that’s starting to worry this is the perfect moment to recover sobriety. “_Oh, Crowley, wouldn’t it be just jolly good if people came to see Hamlet._”

White as a sheet, Aziraphale blinks very quickly. “If you are insinuating that I— That is, if you are insinuating that _I_— And what does that have to do with anything?” He stumbles over his words and Crowley can’t help but smile, he lifts his glass to toast to the air.

“Bold words for someone who’s asking me about how to do _my_ job better.”  
“That’s professional curiosity, nothing more.”

Aziraphale bites the inside of his cheek and Crowley gets up to drag his chair closer to him. “Hey, come on now, don’t be mad,” he could have picked lots of examples. He could have talked about that obscene noise that escapes him when he tastes strawberry and belgian chocolate cake. He could speak about his high-pitched sigh for those instances where life is too damn slow for his expectations, _it’s just sad,_ he says sometimes, _so much unrecognised talent, you know_, and there he is, there Crowley is giving inspiration a push, giving the printing houses a push, the sales numbers, whispering in the ear of who will listen. He could tell him about that pout he is doing right now, the rests of sugar on his fingertips. How is that not finding what makes him tick, how is that not pulling and tugging at Crowley until he has no other choice but to— Ramifications.

“I am not— I’m not _mad,_” he answers petulantly. “Wrath is a sin, you know.”

Crowley’s gaze falls to Aziraphale’s lips. _Just this once_, he thinks. One. One small, harmless temptation. He sets one hand on Aziraphale’s knee, the boldest act of bravery he’s had in six thousand years. Aziraphale has that feverish look that he will get sometimes with Crowley, as if controlling himself was not good enough.

And there has to be something in his face that is asking, maybe begging, and that Crowley is unsuccessfully trying to keep quiet. The tension in Aziraphale’s features seems to soften, not looking at Crowley’s hand, which is still there like dead weight, a phantom limb. Aziraphale closes the distance between them in a kiss that’s more like a question, a curiosity. It’s the same expression he gets when he’s tasting a new wine, and suddenly Crowley feels judged in the same way. Not with a _may I, is this okay_, but with _is this something I would like to do again_. Is this enough. So he squashes what little remains of his doubt and closes his eyes when Aziraphale lifts his chin with one hand, kissing him softly again.

Ramifications.

An angel gives away his most prized weapon to Humanity. Six thousand years later, a demon falls again, the idiot.

Aziraphale leans back with an expression full of something that could be satisfaction. Crowley doesn’t know, he clears his throat and helps himself to another drink under the attentive gaze of Aziraphale. It’s usually the other way around, Crowley spending every second they share in these meetings to study, catalogue. “Want more?” he asks, and he’s not sure what he’s asking about. Aziraphale answers “of course”, and he’s not sure what he’s answering to either. He’ll take it. _So what’s the verdict,_ but Aziraphale takes the glass from his hand and grabs the nape of his neck. Crowley has seen is enough times, caused it enough times, but that doesn’t prevent a fickle and treacherous moan from escaping him.

**consilium**

There is a small abbey near the second town they visit. Aziraphale rests one hand on his arm, asking without asking, and Crowley groans and parks far enough to avoid most of the heat emanating from the consecrated grounds. “You owe me,” he says scratching at his already flushed skin. There are no clouds that morning. Aziraphale had looked at him over his hot chocolate and, not even a little bit subtly, he had said _I have been thinking_. And just like that, Crowley had known his fate was sealed. He didn’t need a lot more. Six months from the Apocalypse, and counting.

_I have been thinking that we are still alive, you and I, isn’t that a coincidence_, Crowley would have said.

“I’ve been thinking about going out. You know, a trip,” Aziraphale says.

So Crowley had taken the Bentley, because there is no _I_ without _them_ nowadays.

The engine has stopped purring and Crowley’s turned down the volume as much as he can, until Freddie Mercury’s voice is only a whisper that’s crawling out of the open windows. He’s saying _I command your very souls, you unbelievers_ and Crowley rolls up his sleeves in the driver’s seat, scratches at his forearms until they are completely red.

(“You _are_ sure you can stop here,” he doesn’t quite believe him, like half the times Crowley lies to him.  
“If you don’t get off I will drive away and push you out while we’re still moving.”

But Aziraphale adores abbeys. He adores religious buildings that are not too big, that strike the perfect balance between history, solemnity and artistic genius.

And Crowley adores—

Well.)

He lets out one “ah, god” that immediately burns his tongue. Huffing, he repeatedly smashes his forehead against the wheel and the glass digs into the bridge of his nose.

**firmitas**

The first time they sleep together (in the most literal and less biblical sense of the word), they have just stopped the end of the world and Aziraphale almost has to carry him back. The bus drops them off in London and Crowley spends most of the journey with his head leaned against Aziraphale’s shoulder, who first looks at him with confusion and then purses his lips. He then slides one arm around his back, until all of Crowley’s cutting edges and pointy angles mold against him. It’s been weeks since he last slept, and even if it’s not necessary for him, the shell he lives in has become quite used to that routine. It would be easy to decide that he is simply not tired, but this nest he makes for himself under the yellow light of the bus seems cozier somehow.

They don’t usually touch, not if you ignore the occasional night.

(The first time they share a bed, Crowley buries his face into the pillow, lies on his stomach while Aziraphale traces what could very well be a path of scales down his spine with his fingertips. The good thing, the nice thing about sex with Aziraphale, even if it requires Crowley to constantly adjust his expectations, is that it’s full of curiousity. Aziraphale seems to find appreciation even in those sharp edges Crowley would thoroughly hide, the corners where his true form can’t help but drip into this dimension. His skin feels sweaty and cold against the scorching touch of Aziraphale on his lower back. “Is everything alright?” he sounds worried, but then again, Aziraphale always sounds worried.

When he doesn’t get a response, his hand slips down and he rests his forehead against the nape of Crowley’s neck, bites softly and then places something that’s barely a kiss between his shoulder blades. “Crowley”, he warns, and it’s almost as if he’s humming his name. Aziraphale’s main problem, he thinks as he feels the pressure of his fingers, is that his attention is constant. His focus is overwhelming and asphyxiating, because Aziraphale does not know how to do anything uncaringly, does not know how to do anything without love, even if it’s not in the way that Crowley would like. “Crowley”, he repeats, graver this time, smothered against the edge of his jaw. Every touch is a small electric shock. “It’s fine, it’s fine,” forehead sinking into the pillow and lifting his hips. “It’s—” he pants, is this what is feels like for humans? Wrecked, stretched so thin it feels like you’re going to vanish any second. “It’s perfect.” He feels Aziraphale nod against him, much more contained, definitely less undignified that Crowley, who needs all his will not to lose focus. He shuts his eyes and relaxes his jaw, his shoulders, his back. Aziraphale turns his head to kiss the base of his throat, he fucks him slowly and thoroughly, because _that’s why you spent one hour discussing the many virtues of beds_, and now, as always, he played himself again.

One of those times, he actually asks him. He says “aren’t you worried about…” and Aziraphale looks at him under half-closed lids, looking as if he were about to fall asleep for real. Crowley points at the space between them, which is very little.

“Should I be?” and the question carries so much laziness and so much affection that Crowley feels like a vine is crushing his ribcage.  
“No, of course not,” he shakes his head nervously, but Aziraphale has already closed his eyes and is sighing contently.)

They don’t usually touch, but Crowley rests one hand on his thigh and Aziraphale grabs it absentmindedly, he caresses his knuckles with his thumb in a repetitive, hypnotic movement, and suddenly his voice is in Crowley’s ear, “should we go to yours?” and Crowley opens his eyes to face Marble Arch through the windows.

“Huh,” his tongue feels numb, “better not, full of Holy Water.”

Aziraphale grabs him so tightly he lets out a sharp squeal. “What the hell is wrong with you,” still adapting to the light and shapes around him. “I’m here, aren’t I?” and Aziraphale looks at him for a second before hitting him open-handed in the chest.

“A room just got freed up in the Marriot,” he snaps, as if that ended the discussion.

He gets up with the same petulant look he gets whenever Crowley does something he does not approve of, but is too British to mention. He smooths out his shirt, extends a hand towards Crowley, which he cautiously accepts. They walk too close, still bathing in that one moment of weakness, drinking in the constant warmth that is being near Aziraphale.

The room is basic but has everything Crowley needs: alcohol, a bed, Aziraphale. He collapses instead of lying down and for once, Aziraphale follows.

He lies on his back, tense and staring at the ceiling, everything that Crowley is not. He curls in on himself as he hits the bed, lying on his left side without bothering to even entertain the idea of taking his clothes off. “You should try,” and as the words are leaving his mouth he thinks about the last time they shared a bed. Instinctively, his head falls until his temple is once again leaning on Aziraphale’s shoulder.

And shoes, jacket, wrinkled shirt, bowtie; the image alone of him lying like that on the bed, so stiff, should be silly, but Crowley is tired and soft and has years of practice in the business of lacking any kind of dignity, so when Aziraphale turns to face him and stares at him, with clear tension building up in his expression, instead of laughing Crowley just can feel his knees quivering. “Just once?” he tries, “you know, to celebrate?” He smiles big and bitter, a chuckle gets away from him after all, a noise that’s high-pitched and hysterical that Aziraphale puts to a halt with a thumb on his lower lip. The mattress shakes with the movement and Crowley with it. Satan did not kill him, but maybe this will.

With the same peaceful expression, he takes off Crowley’s glasses. He folds them carefully and places them on the nightstand. Crowley doesn’t blink, lips half-parted and skin burning up. Aziraphale lies back once again, a little bit closer, just one inch more, and closes his eyes. Armed with patience, Crowley lowers his head and curls up around him.


End file.
